NO PROPANE, BUT LOTS OF WOOD LEFT AND A LIFE’S WORTH OF RALPH’S ODDS, ENDS FOR SALE

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — Ralph Scales was the kind of guy whose glass was always half full.

But when the Korean War veteran died recently his propane tank was half empty.

Friend and neighbour Jason McIntyre says he recently sold what remained to the last customers of the popular James Street barbecue filling station.

Now all that’s left are a couple hundred bags of firewood and some blocks of ice.

McIntyre is liquidating the last vestiges of a once thriving business that sold ice, water, wood and propane, fuelling backyard dinner parties, campground fires and quenching the thirsts of parched residents and cottagers around the Muskoka Lakes.

What remains today is for McIntrye to sell off odds and ends of a life of collectibles 10 decades long.

Crossing over the air hose that dings a bell at McIntyre’s house next door it’s as if Scales was still alive.

Only this time it’s McIntyre who responds — albeit on foot — not the way Scales came out on a bike and later a golf cart.

But the same entrepreneurial spirit lives on as his worldly possessions are disbursed at a fraction of their cost or value.

McIntyre, who worked for Scales’ in his water and wood businesses and was his tenant, has already sold a few things on the advice of the estate’s lawyer and is open to most offers worth the right price, according to him.

The golf cart is spoken for, but the familar 1988 Caprice Ralph was seen driving around town is still available as the keys to it have yet to be located. There’s a matching vehicle in back for spare parts.

For $9 a bag —  cash only — McIntyre will load your vehicle with enough wood to do a cook-out.

In case your propane tank runs out and you need your barbie meat more well-done than red.

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